Now I understand what ari meant about Ezra's decline.
Nothing against Early Girls but my favorite is still a Brandy Boy. (Brandywine-Better Boy hybrid.)
My liking of a dish is inversely correlated to how much individual ingredient quality matters. Which is to say, i mostly like food that includes the whole spice rack.
The person being quoted is interestingly unaware that last year was a good year for tomatoes, and this year is shit.
I use "interestingly" loosely.
The person being quoted is interestingly unaware that last year was a good year for tomatoes, and this year is shit.
sad and true.
also unsurprising --- industrially produced hydroponic variants bred for ship-abilty and consistency are, well, consistent.
3.first bit is crazy talk.
As it happens, I'm going to a winemaker dinner this evening at which all the courses are to feature tomatoes of various kinds. It's been a pretty good year for tomatoes here, so I look forward to it. I'll be sure to live-blog anything interesting.
How can a "year" be "good" for "tomatoes", across the globe? Sunspots?
yoyo and Alice Waters should get together and duke it out.
"Fresh ingredients are key!"
"Fresh ingredients suck!"
How can a "year" be "good" for "tomatoes", across the globe?
I don't know about anywhere else, but it's not been good here. And great fresh tomatoes don't ship worth a damn. Lot's of places have had wet soggy summers this year, or just too hot too fast (here).
8: Ezra's colleague is presumably eating tomatoes from the DC area, where growing conditions are generally like those where redfox lives. Here in our delightful Mediterranean climate, warmer and drier this year than usual, my neighbors' tomatoes are coming along quite nicely.
Has it been a good year in NorCal? I've been buying tomatoes at the farmers market (various heirloom varietals, Early Girls, etc.), eating them, and enjoying them. Should I have been not enjoying them? Is my enjoyment of them, in fact, a sign of my poor moral character?
I'll note that, at least according to my sense-data, some of these tomatoes have tasted better than others.
A coda of smugness: $4.99/lb? Ha! $3/lb here.
The last time I bought heirlooms (a couple of weeks ago), they were $3/lb, same as the organic hybrids from Corvallis and the mostly bland hothouse-grown tomatoes from BC.
12: Is my enjoyment of them, in fact, a sign of my poor moral character?
Worse than that, I'm afraid.
A coda of smugness: $4.99/lb? Ha! $3/lb here.
Sadly, the ones I bought at Andronico's earlier this week were $4.98/lb. They were delicious, though.
I find it quite surprising that ben doesn't have opinions about tomatoes.
Also, 1 gets it exactly right. Klein's recent stuff on this and related food topics (e.g. organics) reminds me a lot of Yggle's "who cares about the environment? I don't!" stupidity. But I guess everyone has something they specialize in being proudly dumb/obtuse about.
8: Ezra's colleague is presumably eating tomatoes from the DC area, where growing conditions are generally like those where redfox lives. Here in our delightful Mediterranean climate, warmer and drier this year than usual, my neighbors' tomatoes are coming along quite nicely.
Quite. It's a tomato vintage year of vast proportions in Seattle, I'm sure.
15: Well, that's what you get for shopping at Andronico's. At least at the one out here, they have a sign up near the registers that claims "Our prices are competitive", or something like that. Methinks they doth protest too much, was my reaction.
And doth s/b do, I guess, as further research indicates that "doth" is third person singular only.
It's a bad year for tomatoes because the Irish potato blight (which also affects tomatoes) was spread all over the place, helped along by big chains selling contaminated plants. Our CSA has had 0 tomatoes so far.
That said, I have some good Pink Girls in the garden, Brandywines are coming along, although my Mr. Stripeys did something bizarre and mutated into cherry tomatoes.
The civic center farmer's market has some good deals.
Sounds like the blight is mostly around here, so please send us poor starving New Englanders some heirlooms.
It's a bad year for tomatoes because the Irish potato blight (which also affects tomatoes) was spread all over the place, helped along by big chains selling contaminated plants.
It's a bad year for tomatoes around here even aside from the blight -- cool, rainy weather does not make good tomatoes -- but the blight sure does cinch things.
16: What was stupid about what Klein said about organics? I'd buy that there's no nutritional difference between organic veggies and non-organic, and as I understand the data, there's no good evidence that there is a detectible difference. That doesn't mean there's no reason to buy them, of course -- the environmental benefit is real.
I find it quite surprising that ben doesn't have opinions about tomatoes.
Actually I have lots of opinions about tomatoes, but they mostly relate to the forms in which I can eat them enjoyously.
I'm growing Brown Berry and Red Fig (friends started them from seed, I just grew them to adulthood). So far, more a fan of the Red Fig. Both are cherry tomato varietals, though.
(Sadly, I still don't really love raw tomatoes. I'm working on it.)
You and me both, (), regarding raw tomatoes.
Except I'm not working on it very hard.
They're so ubiquitous I feel like I should give it a good effort. And for awhile I was enjoying the cherry tomatoes raw, but that seems to have faded. Most recent treatment to make heirlooms palatable raw was a so-called Greek salad.
Last year I had a delicious yellow tomato sliced, and I like the cherokee.
I buy non-heirloom tomatoes at farmers' markets tool.
I remember that when I was a kid, supermarket tomatoes did taste pretty good in the summer time, and they weren't that expensive--in MA and the Finger Lakes of NY. The winter ones in the packages were worse than cardboard.
I now buy the Mexican "cherry tomatoes" in the supermarket which are edible. Even in the height of summer the ones they sell at Whole Foods are just crap.
I'm with you two ten months a year. I'll eat raw tomatoes if they're ripe and local, but otherwise there's something vaguely horrible about the texture. But in August, there's nothing like a tomato/basil/mozzarella salad.
20: although my Mr. Stripeys did something bizarre and mutated into cherry tomatoes
Huh. Weird. We're growing something my housemate described simply as "heirlooms" that he got as seedlngs from our CSA, which have developed into cherry tomatoes. I asked just an hour or two ago what was up with that -- they're delicious, but cherry tomatoes (actually they're more the size of grape tomatoes, but don't taste as sweet), and he just repeated that they're "heirlooms." But dude, that term doesn't mean anything but that they're a somewhat obsolescent variety! Meanwhile, since when do cherry/grape tomatoes arrive in mid-August?
In any case, the so-called "late blight" tomato thing, same as the potato blight, has done a job on things here in the eastern US. That and the wet weather. Any tomatoes that do well will be late.
We planted a good dozen different kinds. I still have a smidge of hope that maybe a plant or two will produce.
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Psst. I finally exported the hungry tiger to a new location where I don't feel I have to password protect it, and also did a pass over all the entries in an attempt expand and rationalize the categorization.
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I'll eat raw tomatoes if they're ripe and local, but otherwise there's something vaguely horrible about the texture. But in August, there's nothing like a tomato/basil/mozzarella salad.
Yes, a well dressed properly ripe good tomato is superb, a subpar one a lump of sadness.
I haven't posted anything in almost a year, and yet there are well over four hundred entries. Oof. Fixing the formatting and re-categorizing all that turned out to be an excellent way to fritter away the hours while trapped in low-information-density all-day meetings.
I don't think I ever find tomatoes as good as the ones I remember coming from my grandmother's garden when I was a kid. But maybe that's just nostalgia. It would have to be a nostalgia I don't feel for anything else that came out of that garden, though.
essear, when is the last time you had a tomato right out of the garden? They're pretty hard to beat.
29: I'll eat raw tomatoes if they're ripe and local, but otherwise there's something vaguely horrible about the texture.
That's because the factory tomatoes are red but not ripe. They hit them with the gas so they turn red but never soften. Pick the hardest vine-ripened ones you can find (meaning still green) and then put them in a closed paper bag and leave them out of the fridge. That will soften (ripen) them up quite a bit after about 5-6 days which is enough time to allow the cells to break down internally. Maybe not enough to eat raw, but enough to improve them fairly drastically in sauces.
26: (Sadly, I still don't really love raw tomatoes. I'm working on it.)
Sea salt and pepper (or lemon pepper).
max
['Yow.']
There's a difference between softening and ripening, as the example of the medlar proves.
re:39 putting a banana in the bag will redden them quickly too, iirc.
A ripe, fresh, juicy, plump tomato right out of the garden, raw (obviously), accompanied by feta cheese, is just really hard to take. You have to admit that.
I agree, it is hard to take. One is tempted to say, "obviously". Especially it is hard to take if one does not like feta.
24: One example: in discussing a recent literature review by Britain's Food Safety Agency finding "no evidence for superior nutritional content of organic produce," he concludes that organic food is "definitely not healthier." Both "definitely" and "healthier" are incorrect, the latter because whether a particular food is healthier or not isn't solely dependent on nutritional content. For example, beef that carries mad cow disease likely has the same protein content as beef that does not.
As for the environmental benefit that you think is real, Klein says organic foods "may . . . be more environmentally friendly".
There's a load of similar sloppy and/or flippant treatment of such issues in his writing on this topic. Lots of selective citing and then just "I'm skeptical" when opposing research is brought up. I don't completely disagree with him on some of his conclusions, but I don't think he's handling the issues in a responsible or honest way.
re:39 putting a banana in the bag will redden them quickly too, iirc.
But to what purpose? This is the exact same thing as the gas treatment that gets you crummy, though red, winter tomatoes.
34, assuming it's referring to 33, gets it exactly right.
43: I will admit no such thing. In fact, quite the opposite.
Belated response to 16, the post presently under discussion seemed more similar to Yggles' "walnut oil, huh?" post.
45: the post he put up announcing his food writing on wapo seemed to hold out the definite promise of surprisingly counterintuitive or anti-c.w. opinions being promulgated, which did not fill me with high hopes (neither would a promise of recycled pro-c.w. opinings have, of course).
46: But you also get a paper bag that smells all banana-y out of it.
I assumed that 43's hard to takeness was meant to indicate something about the overpowering deliciousness of the foodstuff thus prepared.
"organic" is also a nearly useless line to draw, for several reasons.
This:"no evidence for superior nutritional content of organic produce,"
has always struck me as a mugs game.
Yes, your produce is vastly more tasty and less environmental impact than my bland, cheap, mass produced equivalents, but let us argue about nutrient content ...
I'm aware that some organic/local/whatever people have walked into this trap, but it is a trap. And that's without even getting into the questionable science of nutrient analysis.
If you put a banana in a bag with another banana, which banana's ripening is hastened?
Belated response to 16, the post presently under discussion seemed more similar to Yggles' "walnut oil, huh?" post.
Verily.
But to what purpose? This is the exact same thing as the gas treatment that gets you crummy, though red, winter tomatoes.
Contrasts nicely with the basil. They have to actually be ripe, too, of course.
Neither! What happens is, the paper bag breaks down more quickly.
If you put a banana in a bag with another banana, which banana's ripening is hastened?
Neither, the gas doesn't help.
53: Your mother's.
I just had a flash image of Ezra Klein doing bad stand-up: "What is it with organic produce, huh? Am I right??"
48, 55: I am unfamiliar with said post.
|| secureID keyfobs amuse me more than they probably should |>
For those interested, Tom Philpott (a friend of mine from undergrad days, by the way) is doing something of a unning debate with Ezra on this issue over at Grist.
65: "unning" s/b "running".
Either that or the preceding "a" s/b "an".
Let alone the potentially basic error of concentrating on nutrients ..... fwiw, I think it's sophmoric to talk about the "health benefits of organic food", pro or con, without getting into externalities of the entire process. After all, particularly before the lawyers got hold of the term, that was one of the primary purposes of "organic", right?
It depresses me to have such argument presented as meaningful by anyone claiming the bona-fides of "food policy columnist" of even so sullied an organ as wapo.
I've liked some of Ezras stuff before, but this doesn't even make weak sauce.
I can't imagine why anyone would put either a banana or a tomato in a bag.
You ripen unripe tomatoes by putting them stem down on a plate in the sun. As for bananas, do they not ripen fairly quickly on their own? Like in one day?
Maybe they want to carry the bananas or tomatoes somewhere. Maybe it is not sunny. Maybe you have no imagination.
68.1: Some people don't have lunchboxes, parsimon.
68.2(2): Depends on how green they are to start with and on the ambient temperature.
Maybe you have no imagination.
She forgot that "Oh, please don't put me in that bag" was not the banana's safeword.
I can't imagine why anyone would put either a banana or a tomato in a bag.
In that case, the banana is only working for the tomatoes, and they give nothing back, the hussies. 71.last is correct.
I wouldn't recommend trying to take sliced tomatoes and feta anywhere in a paper bag.
But I would recommend taking two sliced tomatoes and feta and calling me in the morning.
Also, fruit flies like a banana, but if it's in a bag they can't get to it. Victory!
Good night, all.
No one ever says which banana they like.
Be enlightened.
The sentence in that post that gets me is:
My conclusion based on reading some of the happiness literature has been that it's best for me to really stick to blind algorithms when possible and not make actual decisions about this sort of thing.
I believe the underlying concept is correct, but that phrasing makes it sound both dumb and like he's condescending to the rest of the world.
I suspect it's intended as mild self-parody, but it still stopped me when I read the post.
True fact, 72
It is inordinately hard for a banana to say "avocado"
79: Racist.
78: And what's up with him considering walnut oil a pantry staple when he clearly doesn't know anything about it or what to do with it?
Yet it's easy to come up with many situations in which a banana might want a safety word.
81/82: just don't use "avocado" is all I'm saying.
70: I suspect you have no respect for tomatoes. In any case, it's pretty much always sunny here, so chalk it up to regional differences.
sometimes it's all about the ethylene parsimon. Even in places where it's always sunny, surely you can get end of season green tomatoes?
Orange you glad I didn't say 'avocado'?
86: Okay. At end of season, I'll check out the paper bag thing for the entirely green tomatoes. I'd mostly been looking at fried green tomatoes, green tomato chutney, and like that.
Orange you glad I didn't say 'avocado'?
The use/mention distinction must get problematic with safe words.
I'll have to try the banana bag trick when I need banana bread but I've failed to buy some two weeks previously.
Actually, I think MY is exactly right about walnut oil. But then I don't like walnuts, so.
Also, while I'm here: Tamari, Butler St. Awesome. Go if you can. Really.
Have I been kicked out of the food wiki? It won't let me in anymore.
:(
Yes, your produce is vastly more tasty and less environmental impact than my bland, cheap, mass produced equivalents, but let us argue about nutrient content ...
Er, I'm a wee bit suspicious about the `vastly less environmental impact' thing & further, there's just something utterly definitionally daft about organic food that makes me inherently dislike the concept & distrust a lot of the claims made about it.
re: 93
Ditto, and I buy organic food fairly regularly. I've nothing against the concept, but it is often sold on health benefits for which there is no evidence. I'm sure the lower environmental impact claim is often true, however.
i don't dislike fresh ingredients. but for things that are ingredients (not, say, an apple or a dried apricot or some almonds i'm going to snack on... um, not that i snack...), bland is really abotu the same. theres no way to notice all the subtleties of tomatoe flavor when its in a pasta or curry dish along with lots of other things. in fact, i sort of prefer bland, because then i can get the same flavor, but with more vegetable nutrition (not applicable to grains, oils,etc).
its like caring about subtleties of guitar pedal when recording an album. its just a detail thats going to get lost outside of an A/B test situation. its the the category of 'tastes i don't wish to cultivate, even if it were possible to'
i think most people overrate how hard it is to cook decently. professional chefs care about good ripe foods because they spend all day making food and can notice these minor differences, and you need to be elitist about what you've usually got your attention on.
Walnut oil has its place. I have two recipes I use it in, and I'd never use it anywhere else.
I agree with ttaM that I would buy organic produce if it was tastier and, for preference, had a smaller footprint than the alternatives. But nutritionally? An onion is an onion is an onion.
(Not a point that hasn't already been made in this thread, but I think worth making again.) I realize that organic food is often promoted as being more nutritious than conventionally grown food, and I think this claim is even more common in the UK than here. But it still can be better for you without being more nutritious, simply by having less bad-for-you stuff in it.
Inspired by the quizzes on Mental Floss, I give you:
Heirloom tomato variety...or Porn Star?
1. Earliana
2. Fallon
3. Extreme Bush
4. Cara Lott
5. Goliath
6. Hyapatia Lee
7. Liz Birt
8. Ona Zee
9. Brandywine
10. Misty Dawn
11. Beefmaster
12. T.T. Boy
13. Ailsa Craig
14. Seka
15. Flower Tucci
16. William Margold
17. Valena Pink
18. Mr. Marcus
19. Cherokee
20. Serenity
21. Vittoria
22. Sunset Thomas
23. Blondköpfchen
24. Amber Peach
25. Dora
26. Gia Paloma
27. Black Prince
28. Jim Powers
29. Mr. Stripey
30. Ruby
Er, I'm a wee bit suspicious about the `vastly less environmental impact' thing & further
I'd argue with you about this, but the term "organic" has been rendered essentially useless, so I can't really.
Let's put it this way, there is a vast gulf between some common high impact industrial farming and some (uncommon) reasonably practical small to medium scale practice.
The latter is a bit more expensive always, and usual a lot tastier, but it's a bit hard to pin down (and may or may not be, "organic", technically)
Let's put it this way, there is a vast gulf between some common high impact industrial farming and some (uncommon) reasonably practical small to medium scale practice.
Yes, Yglesias gets this part exactly right. Leaving aside the fact that organic produce transported across the country may be higher impact than conventional produce grown closer to home, the mathematical logic is pretty clear: You would get a bigger net environmental benefit from reducing the energy and chemical inputs of conventional farming by 10% than by doubling the proportion of true organic produce.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to accomplish this: carbon pricing. The major* environmental impacts of farming (apart from water use, for which organic farming is no better) all relate to fossil fuel consumption in one way or another: energy consumption, nitrogen fertilizer use (Haber-Bosch process), and application of pesticides and herbicides (petrochemistry). When the price of these inputs goes up, growers use them more judiciously.
*I'm oversimplifying a bit. There's also phosphorous fertilizers, non-hydrocarbon-based chemicals, and GMO's.
Further to 100, I should clarify that I don't think this is a question of large-scale versus small-scale or industrial versus artisanal. In many ways, larger scale farms are better positioned to use lower-impact technologies, e.g. satellite imagery and GPS systems to apply nitrogen fertilizer more selectively.
right, 100 is oversimplified, but reasonable for first-order effects.
There is no reason that large-ish operations (at some point size itself can become a problem, depending what you're doing) couldn't focus on this sort of stuff. Currently, though, it just isn't done.
redfoxtailshrub is right about the not ingesting pesticides part being better for you.
I read somewhere though (like Andrew Weil's site which I don't trust much) that stuff grown without pesticides and without being pushed to fast had more vitamins and antioxidants, because it had to work harder to make it. Probably totally bogus, but if it's true, it's not going to show up in an analysis of macro-nutrients.
not ingesting pesticides
And fungicides and weedkillers and so forth. I can't imagine that impact over a lifetime is less than the second-hand cigarette smoke that everybody gets so up in arms over.
Currently, though, it just isn't done.
Here you are wrong, soup. Farmers respond to economic incentives at the margin just like everyone else. You'd better believe that when the price of a ton of nitrogen tripled a couple of years ago that everyone scrambled to reduce their nitrogen application in any way they economically could.
This company sort of interests me. They seem to be working on a way to get more of the east coast's produce from the east, though out-of-season fruits are coming from Arizona. Still it's less lettuce from California.
I bought some of their stuff at Trader Joe's. Usually the produce at TJ's kind of sucks, but this didn't look bad. Their website says that they sell to Whole Foods too.
We wind up buying the organic prewashed lettuce (probably from California) a lot. The non-organic at Shaw's just doesn't seem to hold up as well, and I only ever see arugala or a couple of other types in the plastic boxes.
The Locally Known people admit that their operation couldn't have gotten off the ground but for the fact that they're renting land (from the state, I believe) for cheap, because it's been barred from being developed.
104: Right. One of the issues here is that it's actually really difficult to do good science on this sort of thing, and for many reasons there is neither enough resources nor enough incentives to change it.
It's pretty crazy to assume the absence of a large body of research proving something like this is a bad thing is equivalent to saying it isn't actually a problem.
Why am I retarded with the links?
Here you are wrong, soup. Farmers respond to economic incentives at the margin just like everyone else. You'd better believe that when the price of a ton of nitrogen tripled a couple of years ago that everyone scrambled to reduce their nitrogen application in any way they economically could.
Ok, fair enough, there has been some effect. But it isn't nearly enough, mostly because they can only be so reactive. Nitrogen prices spiking forces people to be less wasteful, but some estimates for overfertalization rates in e.g. corn are 2-4x . So you reduce the wastage, great. But a fundamental shift is going to have to change what some people grow, and where. Being more efficient about where they apply the NPK + roundup approach doesn't actually cut it.
"what some people grow, how, and where" I meant.
My local Co-Op [this is the UK Co-operative supermarket chain, and the word isn't used in the US sense] stocks locally produced veg. Stuff grown within about 20 miles of the shop, and in some cases closer than that. Much of it's organic, but I think some isn't.
That type of thing, where you can easily buy stuff grown locally in a normal mainstream supermarket, seems the way to go for a lot of this.
I'm also fairly convinced that any serious change will involve a bit of a change in labor. Most of the technology push of the last 30 years has involved reducing labor (as well as seed control), rather than overall yield.
One thing that people will pretty much have to accept is an increase in overall food prices, for any sort of meaningful change. It shouldn't have to be unreasonably large.
re: 112
One of the butchers I use switched to all organic (and mostly locally produced) a few years back. They claim that they turnover increased significantly, and the prices aren't out of line with mid-priced intensively farmed meat in supermarkets.
where you can easily buy stuff grown locally in a normal mainstream supermarket.
This is a huge problem in much of the US, as I understand it, because the supermarket chains tend to have centralized buying etc. that really isn't interested in talking to anyone at that sort of volume. The answer in largish cities may be to form a distribution company that aggregates the produce of several hundred smallish farms.
and the prices aren't out of line with mid-priced intensively farmed meat in supermarkets.
sure, but a) scaling issues and more importantly, b) here you are already talking about the top of the market. At least here in the US, a huge amount of the lower cost meat is going into prepared foods, and the current model is aggregation into absolutely huge operations, with very tight margins. It's not so much the steak you'd buy at a local butchers (which doesn't exist here most places anyway, but read "butcher" counter at local supermarket) I was thinking about as the mass market meat pie or frozen pizza or whatever, or fast food burgers, etc.
Still, our food costs here are extremely low and I think can stay low while still improving things a lot.
When I bought stuff at the Co-Op in Oxford (a long time ago), it was kind of the least tasty of them all. I was sorry when they bought out Budgens.
Oxford also has that covered market with like 20 butchers under one roof, plus the weekly outdoor market.
In the towns here, farmers markets have gotten really chi chi. I don't see regular farm stands. I see baked goods and cheese, no doubt higher margin products, or sometimes meat, but I just want reasonably priced fruit and veg.
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Speaking of supermarkets, is it just me, or is there something profoundly wrong about hearing Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone played as background muzak in a supermarket?
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re: 114
I think they use a mixture of regional and national level buying. Not all of the fruit and veg is local, usually it's about 25% of what's in the shop. But it'll be marked: from so-and-so's farm in Berkshire, or so-and-so's in South Oxfordshire, etc. I presume that stuff is bought for and placed in a few dozen regional stores although the co-operative has a couple of hundred stores in the Midlands.
is it just me, or is there something profoundly wrong about hearing Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone
I'm just waiting for the the cycle to continue until they hit punk rock.
re: 116
The locally produced stuff in our Co-Op is very good, but a lot of the smaller Co-Ops have very reduced stock and function really like large corner shops.
I think they use a mixture of regional and national level buying.
This makes a lot of sense, but i have the impression --- quite possibly wrong --- that it's just harder to get through the door here.
117: The original or the Mantovani cover version?
122. The original - the Highway 61 Revisited take, that's the problem.
I guess everyone has something they specialize in being proudly dumb/obtuse about.
Sounds like an excellent post topic.
124: We could get the Pittsburgh Pirates management to talk about baseball.
But I guess everyone has something they specialize in being proudly dumb/obtuse about.
I'm sure most everyone does. Few people get major or even minor media endorsement of it, though.
98 hasn't received enough kudos.
until they hit punk rock.
My nearest Safeway has days when they include Elvis Costello and the Clash (Train in Vain only). Other days are 50s music. I figure they work from aggregate income-age distributions of my zip code,
98 hasn't received enough kudos.
I'll say! I don't write this stuff for my health, y'all. Boost my self-esteem, please!
For those who didn't guess, the odd-numbered names are all tomato varieties, and the even-numbered ones are porn stars.
131: Yes, I thought it was very good. You should try to send one to McSweeney's.
odd-numbered names are all tomato varieties
False.
So I have a food question that doesn't involve tomatoes. Forgive me!
Last night I made a vegan bread pudding. It tastes fairly good although it needs a bit more sugar. But it does not adhere! It's more like a sweetened bread salad that a pudding. Obviously, I can't add eggs and I'd rather not add egg replacer. I'm hosting a DFH vegan potluck next week and would like to make a better version, so I'm wondering if folks have suggestions for variants or for making it more cohesive. Here's what went in:
One large rather good quality baguette, cut into 1-inch pieces per various recipes. A high crust-to-interior ratio.
2.25 cups plain soymilk.
1.5 t vanilla
2/3 C sugar
About 3 T melted buttery spread, on the theory that I'd normally be using half-and-half and thus some fat was needed.
Frozen blackberries, because that's what I had
3 T arrowroot, as per various recipes. Didn't seem to make much difference.
I cut everything up, poured the liquid on and let it sit for fifteen minutes, then baked it at 350 for half an hour. Result--tasty, less sweet than the delicious sopping bread cube I tried before baking, not strongly flavored, a bit chewy. I'm not ashamed of it and in fact plan to share it with folks this evening, but it's hardly my best effort.
Advice? (Other than eggs and cream, of course--I already know that would solve the cohesion problem)
Heat the berries beforehand so that they release some/most of their liquid, and cook same down?
Hm. Then I'd have gummier berries, right, and they would do some of the work of cohesion? Plus better flavor, I expect.
I'm thinking I might try cutting half the bread smaller than 1 inch; I feel like the smaller pieces stay together better for some reason.
Hm, the trouble is that bread pudding isn't just incidentally eggy; it's really fundamentally composed of (1) bread and (2) custard. Xanthan gum? Mmm, polysaccherides.
134: Do you think the usual water/oil mix or banana vegan egg replacement for baking would help here? Obviously not enough banana to make it taste like banana. You might be able to do something with agar too, but that might flop.
nosflow's idea makes some sense in the reducing water content field, although I don't know that this will help with actual cohesion. But if it's watery, worth a shot.
fwiw, I've found stale bread to always work much better for bread puddings, which you don't mention in recipe so I did.
custard.
right. I don't know of a good vegan custard variant.
In theory, that's what the arrowroot is for. I'm thinking maybe tapioca flour?
On the whole, I was surprised by how custardy and bread-pudding-ish the coherent parts were. It wasn't as good as my parents' super-duper half-and-half-plus-fancy-stuff-plus-eggs-and-butter-plus-fresh-raspberries version, but then that version has something like 5000 calories in a small batch (I worked it out once while I was making it) and is so rich that it leaves me feeling a bit unwell.
I think the key here was really good bread.
I'm thinking maybe tapioca flour?
I'd try corn flour probably. It'd add a bit of "eggy" color too.
Yes, one is pretty much out of luck when looking for vegan custard.
I think a banana or two would work but it's difficult to introduce banana into such a non-complex dish without creating a banana pudding. On the other hand, many people like bananas more than I do; it might go over big at the potluck. I could probably make two since they're so quick.
I didn't have stale bread because I was overcome with the desire to do a test run for the potluck; I did dry the bread in the oven a bit, though. For the potluck itself I'll have stale bread.
I think a banana or two would work but it's difficult to introduce banana into such a non-complex dish without creating a banana pudding.
Yup, that's the worry. That's why I suggested agar-agar, not because I'm sure it would work but because if it does work it won't really change the taste. I'd try a bit of that and a bit of thickener (corn flour/starch, whatever) if I was experimenting.
I really don't know what I'm talking about, but when I think of vegan custard, I think tofu. There has to be some way to make soymilk coagulate -- more soymilk, and add whatever one adds to soymilk to make it turn to tofu, so you end up with the bread bound together with sweetened, flavored tofu/custard?
This is clearly serious alchemy, and if you haven't thought of it it's probably because it's known not to work.
Here's a recipe for soymilk custard with agar -- maybe steal the proportions from there?
98 more than good.
There are a bunch of genuine talents here, and excellent material-- the raps (MM's especially), this list, AWB's boomer rant, a sestina from Alameida, and a handful of collective discussions.
One more way that a fantasy of early communism has become fulfilled in late capitalism-- the anonymous authors' collective, producing work critical of the capitalist order.
You're not far off, LB, as tofu is made from soy milk that way (pretty easy, actually) The problem is, it's not really sticky the way custard is, so won't hold other things together. Maybe the approach in 145 is getting there though.
145 interests me strangely. I have agar agar....Perhaps one banana bread pudding as a fail-safe and then a dangerous experimental version with raspberries.
One more way that a fantasy of early communism has become fulfilled in late capitalism-- the anonymous authors' collective, producing work critical of the capitalist order.
Are you aware of the work of Luther Blisset/Wu Ming?
You're not far off, LB, as tofu is made from soy milk that way (pretty easy, actually)
By coagulating soy milk, yes, but not with agar. Tofu's coagulated with calcium sulfate, calcium chloride, or magnesium chloride. Sometimes acids and enzymes are added as well.
Oh, I see now how you were parceling out what you were responding to. Sorry.
153 yeah, that wasn't the clearest response I've ever written.
Or a member! McMing.
not gniMcM ?
On the other hand, a member might be more likely to spell Blissett with both tee's.
152: You can coagulate soy milk by adding vinegar, generating "soy buttermilk". Which works pretty well in biscuits, actually. Also it's fun to see the soymilk clabber up.
Curiously, I have Q on special order at the bookstore right now. Someday it may even arrive!
It may be hard to get your hands on it in a timely fashion (and you probably know anyway), but googling reveals that Bird's Custard powder is vegan (corn flour based), and it seems like that'd bind a bread pudding adequately.
And here's a goodlooking bread pudding thickened with tofu.
re: 156
As an anarchist I deny the power of nomino-orthographic orthodoxy!
re: 157
Q is great, although not everyone likes it. My Dad hated the changes in authorial style, which were much more glaring to him than to me.
158: I did not know that Bird's Custard Powder was vegan--it never even occurred to me to check. But that sounds absolutely brilliant. And as for the bread-and-butter pudding--I admit that I hate to mess around with a few tablespoonfuls of yogurt and a fraction of a package of tofu, but I can see that the recipe will make me popular and beloved at potlucks, so I do believe I'll try it. Also, it seems to involve layers and I tend to like layered food. (Thanks!)
Heh. I am now google-preening.
I'll try to remember to post a vegan custard-y thing when I get home to my cookbooks. (Anybody who cares, remind me if I don't.)
(The one I'm thinking of is silken-tofu-based.)
Since 98 didn't win the gushing plaudits I had hoped for, I give you...
Tomato variety...or code name of World War II military operation?
1. Bloody Butcher
2. Crimson
3. White Wonder
4. Market Garden
5. Emerald Evergreen
6. Regatta
7. Prairie Fire
8. Primrose
9. Tigerella
10. Overlord
Based on a couple of data points, and a belief that you did the even/odd thing again, evens WWII, odds tomatoes.
146: So I guess all the hard work that went into those sonnets has been in vain. Sigh.
Follow-up to 7: of perhaps 16 different varieties on the menu last night, only 3 were named (plus a Beefsteak, but the particular variety of Beefsteak was left unspecified), which led me to question the seriousness of the enterprise. Among them was Early Girl, which is indeed a great tomato, but honors go to a couple of the heirloom varieties, contributed by the restaurant's employees and neighbors. Even young Ezra would have to admit their superiority.
Tomato & cucumber gazpacho with smoked Spanish paprika and a splash of coriander-infused vodka: abfab. Try it at home.
Jesus sure seems to eat and drink well.
I have a paternal obligation to set a good example for my daughters.
166: I started doing it for Rose varieties which are legion, but did not have time to complete.
Recall Sexy Rexy among a few other other good ones.
The military operations are insane enough on their own. Saigon evacuation was Operation Frequent Wind.
Saigon evacuation was Operation Frequent Wind.
Fitting.
I'm still amazed that the initial 2003 Iraq invasion was Operation Iraqi Liberation. Really? No one noticed the abbreviation?
[Late, but I don't care, ya know.]
43: A ripe, fresh, juicy, plump tomato right out of the garden, raw (obviously), accompanied by feta cheese, is just really hard to take. You have to admit that.
Uh, no? I have eaten habenero peppers raw. Really, raw ripe tomatoes are fabulous.
But to what purpose? This is the exact same thing as the gas treatment that gets you crummy, though red, winter tomatoes.
Let's start over. A tomato is a seed pod. As it softens up, it turns red to attract herbivores/omnivores who will eat the soft seedpod and then shit seeds in faraway places, hopefully. If nothing eats the pod, the plant will eventually give it up and the pod will fall to the ground and split and the plant will propagate that way.
Yay.
What the commercial growers do is pull the tomatoes before the plant is ready to give them up, that is, when they're green with maybe a bit of yellowing. Then they stick the tomatoes in sealed containers, inject ethelyne and ship them where ever in refrigerated freight cars/trucks @ 40F or so. Shipping takes maybe a week. During that week, internal breakdown (and natural emission of ethelyne) of the tomato is retarded by the low temperature. But it does continue from the very early starting point. The addition of the ethelyne plus a week in a container will turn the outside a pinky red. The inside will be watermelon pink and whitish but not red, like it is supposed to be. That is the point at which people typically buy the tomato.
It's still a goddamn tomato, however. So, if you leave it out at 70Fish, internal breakdown will continue normally, just like it would with a yellow-pinkish tomato, which is what the thing actually is at that point, color indications aside. So what you gotta do is wait. If you put it in the paper bag though, that tends to shield the tomato from forces that cause external breakdown (light, moisture, bugs) and traps the emitted ethelyne around the tomato, which encourages (or should encourage) the ethylene emitted internally to stay inside the pod and speed up internal breakdown. What I'm trying to do is accelerate the internal decay curve while retarding the external decay curve, hopefully bringing the two curves back into sync.
That trick seems to work, which I know since I tested it. One batch of tomatoes, half on the counter, half in a paper bag on the counter. The ones in the bag seemed to be somewhat softer and redder. However, if paper bags offend you mightily, just leaving the damn things out on the counter for a week or so should improve the ripeness situation, since people seem to pick even their garden tomatoes way too early and eat them too early.
For example: neighbor lady brought over two large tomatoes and a bag of cherry tomatoes last Saturday. Meanwhile, I had a small tomato ripening up on my plants. The two big tomatoes plus my one were red but not ripe, so I stuck all of them in the the kitchen window. The cherry tomatoes were ready to eat pretty quick, the one large tomato from the neighbor and the one I picked were ready to go Wednesday, and that last big one (which started out red with yellow stress streaks on the top) just today assumed that food magazine/sauce tomato color. And I'm going to eat that sumbitch today. Or maybe tomorrow.
So there you go.
max
['Ah..ah..ahn...ti-ci-pa-aa-aa-aa-tion...']
For folks in MA who want a leg up on future pain perdu tomato-variety quizzes, our old CSA farm is having its annual tomato festival next weekend, with tastings of about a hundred varieties of heirloom tomatoes (late blight notwithstanding). Yum.
My personal favorite quiz along the lines of 98 & 166 is My Little Pony or Porn Star from Brunching Shuttlecocks. "Equine or Supine?"
PP still hasn't acknowledged that it is not the case that, in 98, odds are tomatoes. In particular, 15.
I had a weird volunteer tomato come up in my garden this summer. I have retroactively decided it is the type-specimen for a new variety called Flower Tucci. pp knew this.
PP still hasn't acknowledged that it is not the case that, in 98, odds are tomatoes. In particular, 15.
Far more astonishing is the fact that nobody has asked ribbed you about knowing this.
Homo sum; nihil humani alienum a me puto.
Nothing tomato, either, apparently.
No, that was all process of elimination.
per 176.5, elimination isn't wasteful. It's what spread the seeds.
One would only be wasteful would be if the waste were never eliminated.
There is a tree on the island Mauritius called the tambalacoque. It was near extinction because the seeds had to pass through the digestive system of a dodo before they could sprout. Now my neighbors' yards are full of tambalacoque trees and I've only got two citations for indecent exposure. So, on the whole, I think I'm ahead of the game, conversation wise.
65, 67: Thanks for linking to the Grist discussion, M/tch. I am forever neglecting to read that site (and at the time of the comments upthread, obviously had become stupidly distracted over the question of putting-certain-things-in-bags).
OT bleg, if it's not too much: is there any easy way to manage one's bookmarks/favorites? I seem to have several hundred political- and/or activist-type bookmarks, and they're getting out of hand, yet it's tedious beyond belief to straighten them out. I'm not awful about categorizing in the first place, but over time, you know how it is. Is there some application that allows for quicker dragging and dropping and rearranging, or something? Apologies if this is old hat to everyone.
189.2: You could start a blog and put a blogroll on it. Later, you'll lose interest in updating it. Problem solved!
191: Ugh. Internet Explorer. Chiefly because my computer is set up to be a rough mirror of the work machine.
The Favorites setup in IE (version 7) is less user-friendly than previous versions in terms of ease of dragging and dropping things. Or perhaps I've overdone things, as I have subcategories with categories (subfolders within folders). In any case, I'd dearly love to be able to look at a split-windowed screen not unlike Windows Explorer across which I can drag & drop quickly, if that makes sense.
Further to 192: Oh my. Can I do this via Windows Explorer? Checking, checking.
Holy crap! You guys are the best! It's still a little eye-squinty, but hey.
195: Oh, maybe there's still something out there that would be sweet, as doing it through Windows Explorer is still not the best (I'd like a dedicated window just for the Favorites, and that I don't think I can do this way). But Apo is patient enough that he makes me think it through myself.
Basically, I'd been disgusted, and not in problem-solving mode.
If it's working for you, bravo. If not, I think Firefox allows you to import your bookmarks from IE when you install it. It has a pretty good window for organizing bookmarks.
198: I have a feeling that's what I'm going to do.
This might be good. It check for dead links and allows you to organize too.
http://download.cnet.com/AM-DeadLink/3000-2370_4-10056655.html?tag=mncol#editorsreview
200: That looks interesting. Thanks.